Francesc Gambús, Member of the European Parliament, has visited Parc de Recerca UAB in order to acquaint LIFE SAVING-E Project

24 Jan Francesc Gambús, Member of the European Parliament, has visited Parc de Recerca UAB in order to acquaint LIFE SAVING-E Project

On 13 January, Francesc Gambús, member of the European Parliament and a member of the Environment Committee, visited Parc de Recerca UAB, motivated by the project LIFE SAVING-E. Gambús has been received by Javier Lafuente, director of the Parc and Vice-Rector of Strategic Projects and Innovation of the UAB, and Iván Martínez, Manager of Research at the UAB.
The visit started with the presentation of the activities of the Parc and the research lines in environment and sustainability of the groups and research centres of the UAB. Then, Konstantinos Kourkoutas, coordinator of the CORE Intelligent and Sustainable Cities, explained the activities of CORE and the projects in circular economy that are being carried out. After that, the two LIFE projects, for which the euro-parliamentary was interested and currently under development, were presented. On the one hand, Juan Fran Sangüesa, responsible for the Projects Area of the Parc de Recerca UAB, explained the reWINE project, which studies the feasibility of a sustainable system for collecting, cleaning and reusing glass bottles in the wine sector in Catalonia. On the other hand, Julián Carrera, senior researcher of the GENOCOV research group of the Departament d’Enginyeria Biològica, Química i Ambiental at UAB, has presented the SAVING-E project, which aims to evaluate whether is possible or not the conversion of current urban WWTPs from being net-energy consumers into self-sufficient or even net-energy producers.

The visit has continued in the Institut de Ciència i Tecnologia Ambientals building (ICTA-UAB) guided by the ICTA director, where Gambús has been able to see the facilities and laboratories and to know all the details of the building, which was designed under very demanding criteria of sustainability.
Finally, they visited the facilities where the LIFE SAVING-E Pilot Plant is located and where the pilot test of the technology proposed by the LIFE SAVING-E project is being developed.